


Moments Peace

by thegoddessinzerogravity



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Pre-Canon, Thalia-centric, baby annabeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:35:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19130281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoddessinzerogravity/pseuds/thegoddessinzerogravity
Summary: Thalia didn't have a response to her. She couldn't exactly fault Annabeth for having her faith in the older members of their party severely shaken after tonight. Thalia's own faith in herself was barely standing as it was.





	Moments Peace

"I think this should do it."

Normally, a shitty, run-down convenience store would have been too risky a hiding spot for Thalia to approve on, but she would have taken almost anything after what had happened in Brooklyn. Her legs were aching and none of them had slept, and the promise of somewhere to rest, even for a short while, seemed borderline miraculous. 

For what felt like the hundredth time since their escape, she did a mental headcount. Grover, standing behind them. Luke, peering through dirty glass windows to examine the contents of the convenience store. And Annabeth, leaning against Luke and looking dangerously close to passing out.

_Everyone's here. You can see everyone. They're all here._

Luke squinted at the sign stuck to the door. "I think its closed for the long weekend."

Grover spoke up for the first time since they'd escaped. "Are you sure? It's just that-"

Luke turned around and gave him a cold glare. "Yes. I actually am sure. The lock will be easy to get into. And we, especially her," he nodded down at Annabeth still clinging to his hand, "have to stop at some point."

Grover scraped his hooves on the sidewalk. "It's just that, um, we all know demigods have issues with reading, and I don't want the store owners to come back this morning and and we get into even more trouble-"

Thalia pushed him aside and took a look at the place herself. The dancing black lines on the paper took a few minutes to sort themselves out, but it become clear that Luke was right. The store wouldn't be reopened until Tuesday.

"He's right, Grover. We can stop here. There will be food and supplies in there, which we desperately need." 

"You're outvoted." Luke said. 

"You didn't ask Annabeth what she thinks, Luke."

Through the whole debate, Annabeth hadn't said anything. Thalia doubted that she'd let go of Luke's hand since they'd escaped the nightmarish warehouse. She must have been exhausted by now. "She agrees with me, Grover. We're stopping here for the night."

Luke extended the hand she had a hold on and nudged her towards Thalia. "Go be with Thalia for a bit, Annie." As soon as the younger girl had released his hand and drifted over to Thalia, he started to work on the padlock securing the store.

Thalia crouched down next to her and gave her a light poke in the stomach. "Hey there. Are you awake?"

Annabeth knuckled her fist into her eye and shook her head. "No. I don't want to fall asleep." She immediately belied her statement by swaying forward and would have fallen on her face if Thalia hadn't caught her by the armpits and steadied her. 

"Well, we're almost to a safe place. You'll want to sleep there, right?" She glanced up to check on Luke, who was still fiddling with the lock to the convenience store, and then to Grover, who was keeping an anxious lookout.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I know I'll have bad dreams." Thalia didn't have a response to that. She couldn't exactly fault Annabeth for having her faith in the older members of their party severely shaken after tonight. Thalia's own faith in herself was barely standing as it was. 

"We won't let anything get you in your sleep, I promise" but the words sounded hollow even to her own ears. Annabeth leaned forward again and pressed her head into Thalia's shoulder.

"I thought you didn't want to sleep?" she said, adjusting her position to handle Annabeth's weight. 

"I'm not," came the muffled reply. "I'm resting my eyes."

"You know, Annabeth, you were really brave earlier. We would have been in really big trouble without you." Annabeth responded by wrapping her arms around Thalia's waist. Thalia put her hands on the smaller girl's back to stop her from falling over entirely, wondering if maybe she'd made a mistake by reminding her of what had happened.

"Is she out?" She looked up to see Luke hovering over them, and the door to the convenience store swung open. 

"You did it! And yeah, I'm pretty sure she is. Can you carry her inside?" Luke nodded and bent down to swing Annabeth into his arms. Despite her small stature, she was still often too heavy for Thalia. It was a frequent source of teasing from Luke about how apparently effortlessly he could carry Annabeth himself, but tonight he was silent as she shoved the door open the rest of the way and he walked inside. 

Grover was still standing at the other side of the sidewalk. Thalia waved to get his attention. "Hey, Grover. Luke got the door open."

He hesitantly turned around and eyed the store. "Are . . . are you guys sure you want me to be inside too? I can stay out here to keep watch. I'm not that tired."

"Don't be dumb. Come inside."

"I want to watch for at least a little longer. I'll come inside in a few minutes."

Thalia shrugged, and made sure to shut the door behind her. If monsters did end up coming for them, it would be useless, but it would at least be marginally helpful for deterring human threats.

Luke had already made his way to the back. Thalia followed him, snatching a pair of cheap travel pillows and emergency blankets off of a rack as she did. "Here, we can use these for her." She fluffed them up as best she could and laid them on the linoleum floor, and Luke carefully let Annabeth spill out of his arms and onto the makeshift bed. 

"Did Grover not come in with you?"

"He wanted to keep watch for a little while, make sure we weren't followed."

"So he's finally doing what he promised and protecting us?" Thalia frowned at him. "This wasn't his fault."

"All I'm saying is we weren't running into nearly as many cyclopes dens before he showed up!"

"You know that isn't fair."

"Why are you defending him, you were there too! It's not like-" She smacked him in the chest before he could continue. " _Would you keep your voice down!_ "

They both looked down at Annabeth. Still sleeping. Luke ran his hands through his hair, and Thalia could practically sense the anger radiating off of him. She knew him well enough to know that he'd restrained from blowing up at Grover for Annabeth's sake, but all bets were off now.

"I'm going to go talk to him." Thalia said. 

"I want to do it." Luke immediately protested. Thalia was already rising to her feet. "Stay here with Annabeth. She'll freak out if she wakes up alone after what happened."

Thalia thought he'd complain more, but he just sighed and leaned back against the wall behind him. "Make sure you ask him how much longer it's actually going to take to get us there."

"I will."

"And that we can't afford any more mistakes like that."

"That too."

Her shoes squeaked loudly on the tiles as she walked back towards the entrance, and it occurred to her that now would be a typically awful time for a monster to detect them. Like always. An analog clock on the wall displayed the current time as two in the morning.

She shoved the doors back open and walked back over to Grover's side. Before she could say anything, he burst out "I'm so sorry, I am so incredibly sorry, that was all my fault, I got the way mixed up, I can't-"

She held up her hand and he sputtered to a stop, staring at her with desperation in his eyes. "I know."

They stood in silence for a while, watching late-night New York. They had stopped in a more suburban, sparsely populated area. Pedestrians were scarce, and hardly any cars had rolled by in the time they'd been there. It was still heavily polluted enough that the stars were just faint dots in the sky. After a while, she cleared her throat and asked "how much longer is it going to take to get there?"

Grover stared miserably at the ground. "It should have been just a few more days. But I keep messing up. This is what I'm supposed to be _good_ at."

She didn't know how to respond. She wanted to reassure him that it was okay, but any words of comfort she could conjure seemed empty. And despite what she had told Luke, there was a tiny nugget of resentment building inside her. Letting Grover lead them to camp gave them a goal, an endgame in sight that wasn't just hiding and surviving. But it also meant placing trust in someone who was basically a stranger to guide them to safety. A lot of trust.

When Grover spoke again, it was slowly, like he was choosing his words very carefully. "You know, Thalia . . . there is a way to get to camp faster. Probably safer, too."

"What is it?"

"I could take you ahead with me, just us. We would travel a lot faster with a smaller group, and one demigod is less noticeable than three."

Thalia stared at him incredulously. "Are you serious? Absolutely not. We're not abandoning Luke and Annabeth."

"Think about it, please- we wouldn't be abandoning them, I'd leave directions or a map or send for another satyr to get them."

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "We've made it this far together, haven't we? I can't just say _Wow guys, thanks for sticking with me and protecting me all this time, but I'm skipping out now to get to Camp ahead of you. See ya!_

Grover winced. "I knew you wouldn't like it. I thought maybe you'd want to get there as soon as possible. And Annabeth-" He cut himself off before he could finish the sentence. 

"What about Annabeth?" 

"It's just- she's slow."

The tiny nugget of resentment was snowballing fast. "Yeah, she's a little kid. Of course she's slow. That's why I can't leave her with just Luke for protection!"

"Have you considered that you might actually be helping them by leaving? A child of Zeus attracts way more attention than any other demigod." Thalia clenched her hands into fists and shoved them in her coat pockets. "I don't want to hear it anymore. They're my family. I can't leave them behind." 

She turned around, to return inside. "Wake one of us up to take over watch." She threw over her shoulder.

According to the clock on the wall, hardly any time had passed since she'd left. It had felt like hours. She grabbed the first food item she saw-a packet of pretzels- and stomped back towards the little space in between the shelves where Luke and Annabeth were. 

Luke was slumped over against the wall, snoring lightly. He'd removed his jacket before falling asleep and draped it over himself as a sort of blanket. He had one arm stretched out protectively towards Annabeth, as if prepared to leap up and defend her from an attacker, even in his sleep.

As she stared at them, Thalia felt her anger start to drain away, replaced by a feeling of melancholy and some regret for snapping at Grover. She sat down next to Luke and tugged his jacket over so it was covering both of them and leaned her head against his shoulder, the bag of pretzels dropping to the floor next to them.

Would it actually keep them safer if she left with Grover? Was losing the danger of traveling with a daughter of Zeus also worth losing two fighters? Maybe she'd underestimated Luke's ability to take care of Annabeth by himself.

She shuddered, and the memory of the voices in the cyclopes house came flooding back to her. The cyclopes innate, terrifying ability to reach straight inside her and see everything, all the things and people that she'd left behind and now only haunted the edges of her dreams. She'd been so convinced that if she turned the corner, ran down one more hallway, opened one more door, the terror and darkness would fade away, and she'd see a familiar little mop of blond hair running towards her.

Thalia pressed her head a little harder against Luke's shoulder, and pushed the tip of her shoe across the floor until she was touching Annabeth too. 

She could never leave them like that. They were seeing this journey through to the end, together.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly fascinated with this period of time, of Thalia and Luke post-Annabeth but pre-CHB.
> 
> I'd really appreciate any feedback you have, since I'm never quite sure how to characterize Thalia.


End file.
